


in vino veritas

by dorypop



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Has No Chill, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drunk Driving, First Kiss, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, POV Adam Parrish, Past Child Abuse, Underage Drinking, basically drunk teens being idiots, there's also a brief mention of ronan's dad, this is set around BLLB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorypop/pseuds/dorypop
Summary: “I don’t even like drunk people,” he said, when Ronan came back with a new full cup.“Then why the fuck are you here?”“It was a really bad idea,” Adam agreed.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 19
Kudos: 200





	in vino veritas

The more Adam thought about it, the worse the idea looked.

It had been a bad one from the very start—you just _didn’t_ bet against Blue, what was he even thinking. He could blame the sleep deprivation and his Algebra midterm and how delicious that lemonade had tasted, but he really _should_ have known better.

To make it even worse, Blue wasn’t even there to see that he kept his part of the bet. She’d lasted all but two seconds by his side, before rushing off to greet a boy whom Adam was ninety-four percent sure shared his Biology class—only with less corduroy around his person while in Aglionby. Why Blue’d known he was called _Chad_ when Adam himself had only known him by Price, Adam could only guess. He just wasn’t in the mood for guessing.

Gansey had said he’d be here too—he’d _promised_ , because he’d also been seduced by Jimi’s lemonade, and he actually _liked_ these kind of parties and taking Blue to them, but Adam hadn’t seen him yet.

Ronan had grunted when they’d asked, so Adam had assumed he wouldn’t be bothered to come. Nursing his full-to-the-brim red cup, Adam envied his foresight.

He supposed he could leave any minute. He’d given Blue a ride, but she was definitely on friendly terms with most of the people in the party, and if she called Gansey would come get her. He could just leave the cup on the pool table and lie to her and tell her he’d been there the whole time, and even drank the damn cup he’d agreed to, and if she said she couldn’t find his car he could just tell her he’d ran to buy some more ice or something.

He could sometimes see her in between the bodies, playing beer pong or darts or whatever stupid game Henry Cheng had roped people into at the time. She was probably drunker than him and had already forgotten all about their bet.

Adam should forget about it, too, really.

He took his cup to his lips, trying not to breathe when he tasted the beer on the plastic rim.

He fought the need to gag.

“Are you drinking it or kissing it?” someone asked. Adam flinched, because with the music and the heat he couldn’t for a moment locate where the voice was coming from.

Then, he saw Ronan’s smirk, which he managed to maintain even while he drank his beer directly from the bottle. Adam had forgone that option immediately because he apparently still retained _some_ of his reasoning ability and knew he wouldn’t be able to drink a single sip from one of those.

“What are you doing here?”

Ronan’s eyebrows asked the question back, and none of them answered. Adam braced himself and drank a bit.

A single tear threatened to escape his closed eyelids, but Adam made it come back inside out of sheer willpower.

“You know, Parrish, there are other options if what you want is getting wasted,” Ronan said, laying his weight against the pool table. Some drunk people were racing the balls on the wooden floor, and shouting how many hundreds of dollars they were betting on their chosen. Adam’s stomach churned.

“I guess,” he noncommittally said, because his bet with Blue had been that Adam would not get drunk from one single _beer_ , and not anything else.

“Douchebag,” Ronan snorted, and Adam was offended for a moment before he followed his eyes to one guy who was eating what looked like fancy canapés from a tray, while sitting crisscross on the floor.

“What are you even doing here?” Adam asked, a bit bothered, because he couldn’t just leave his cup on the table and simply get out if Ronan was there, and he really didn’t want to spill his guts out by drinking his beer.

“Some dickhead invited me.” Adam took three seconds to figure Ronan was talking about him.

“Technically, it was Gansey,” he argued, but Ronan just raised his beer in a mock salute. “Is he even coming, anyway?” Despite Adam’s effort, he winced when he realized it had sounded more needy than what he’d liked.

“Don’t know. I was at the Barns.”

Adam turned to look at him. “Oh? Did you figure something out?”

Ronan shook his head and with another swing finished his bottle.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

And so, Ronan left. Adam sighed and drank another sip, which tasted even worse than the previous ones, if that was even possible. The smell alone made his legs tremble and he had to force his hand to stay still not to crush the fragile plastic cup.

He glared at the floor, because he really wanted to leave and he had a mountain of homework waiting for him back at St. Agnes, and the music and the noise were making him tired.

“Here,” Ronan said, startling him again. He offered Adam a new cup, with a liquid that didn’t look at all like beer. He was carrying one himself.

Adam sniffled the cup.

“What is this.”

“A cocktail,” Ronan drawled.

Adam frowned, but Ronan’s somewhat-eager eyes on him made him take the chance. He took a sip.

It was surprisingly not bad. It tasted like orange juice, but more metallic. Or something. Not like beer at all.

Almost sagging in relief, Adam left his beer on the pool table. Ronan’s snort made him feel brave and he drank a bit more.

It felt exhilarating, really. It was like all his early anxiety at being trapped in this awful party was slowly evaporating. The first good thing to happen to him since he’d woken up early in the morning to go to work before school. He caught a glimpse of someone’s hair, that could of could not be Gansey’s, making his way towards where he thought Blue was. He found he didn’t mind.

“You didn’t come to school today,” Adam said, because apparently the alcohol had increased his brain capacity and now he’d unlocked the ability to state the obvious. He mirrored Ronan’s early posture and leaned against the table.

“Nope.” Ronan seemed more relaxed than usual, too. Or perhaps it was just Adam’s mind, which despite him was starting to feel a bit foggy—Ronan looked casual enough, sipping from time to time while his foot unconsciously tapped to the beat.

Adam didn’t say anything else, because they’d never been at a point in which they’d felt the need to fill silences with small talk, and anyway a loud party with annoying music was not a scenario in which Adam felt comfortable talking. It was hard enough in a normal situation to pinpoint when people were talking to him—nevermind at a place like that.

Adam finished his drink and was just on the brink of deciding if it was worth it to go get a second one or if it was better to just let it be for the night because he felt tipsy enough when Ronan gently took his cup from him and shook it in front of his eyes, to tell him he was going to get more.

Adam found himself nodding, and wondering what was going to happen when they both decided they wanted to go home and were both too drunk to drive. No matter how much he trusted Ronan, he wasn’t about to get into a car while he was drunk. He wasn’t _that_ stupid.

“I don’t even like drunk people,” he said, when Ronan came back with a new full cup.

“Then why the fuck are you here?”

“It was a really bad idea,” Adam agreed.

“You hate beer,” Ronan stated. Adam hummed, because it was true.

“The trailer always smelt like beer,” Adam said, looking earnestly at Ronan. He had the feeling Ronan would listen, perhaps because his cheeks looked quite flushed and only half-lit by the lamps—someone had had the bright idea of covering them with translucent pieces of fabric to dim the light. “My dad didn’t even drink all the time, but he’d leave the bottles laying around until my mom or I would put them away. And his _breath_ —” Adam stopped himself, because he realized what he’d started blabbering about.

Ronan kept looking, as if waiting for Adam to continue, but Adam didn’t know how to wrap this up in a lighter note, or how to make the memory of that smell disappear, or how to make the buzzing in his deaf ear stop. He didn’t even know what the look on Ronan’s eyes meant. He was normally quite adept, if he himself said so, at figuring out Ronan’s looks.

He took a deep breath, but it didn’t make him feel better. He actually felt like crying.

He didn’t want to cry. Not in the middle of a party, full of Aglionby boys. Not when he’d only come here to win a bet he’d shamefully lost against Blue. Not in front of Ronan, who hadn’t been to school in the morning but who had spent hours on end at the library last year to cram for exams after Adam had pressed charges against his dad.

Adam steeled himself and gave Ronan his cup back.

Without saying a word, he left the house through the back door.

The cold night air helped a bit. He could probably sleep for twenty-four hours and still feel tired when waking up.

After some searching, he found his car. After some fumbling, he found his keys in his back pocket. It took two tries, but he opened the door.

He was in no state for driving.

He sat there for a second, unmovingly watching the couple who was shamelessly making out by a window. The girl was probably going to choke, judging by the force with which the guy seemed to be pushing his tongue inside her mouth. Adam thought he maybe knew the girl from middle school, but couldn’t place her name.

He jumped on his seat when the passenger door opened.

“What the hell, Lynch?” he snapped, extremely glad he hadn’t puked his insides out from the shock.

“What the hell, you?”

“I’m going home,” Adam said, but he hesitated before putting the key on the contact.

“You’re drunk.”

“So?” Ronan had done way more terrible things than drink and drive. He had no right to judge.

“ _And_ clever.”

Adam scoffed. He closed his eyes and collapsed against the headrest.

“You didn’t have to freak out,” Ronan spoke first, which was an unusual enough feature to grant Adam opening one eye to glare at him. “I’m not fucking gonna tell anyone. Not even Chainsaw.”

Adam snickered at the mental image of Chainsaw spreading his most obscure secrets among her fellow raven friends, and immediately felt his ears get hot from embarrassment.

“Thanks.” He cleared his throat, so that Ronan would stop talking about that already.

“Once, Declan tried to give me this drink responsibly talk and was very enthusiastic on the point _drink as much water as you’ve alcohol._ ” Ronan managed to make a good impression on is brother by straightening his spine and making his mouth frown in a way that made you feel you were the biggest disappointment on earth. Adam felt like laughing, so he laughed.

He wasn’t sure he liked being drunk. He was probably making a mess of himself.

“Am I making a mess of himself?”

Ronan’s side smirk as he resettled himself on his seat made something ignite in Adam’s stomach. Only then did Adam remember he hadn’t eaten anything since the butter sandwich he took for lunch to school. Probably not his most brilliant idea, though the night was shaping to be a compendium of those.

“I learned this word the other day—compendium. It sounds like something Gansey would say, right?” Adam realized he was forgetting to clip his vowels, but he couldn’t remember how he was supposed to control that. His mouth kept wanting to speak. He just didn’t know how to stop it.

“Gansey says all kinds of shit,” Ronan nodded. Adam was very glad they’d left the party so the lack of music allowed him to hear the fondness on Ronan’s voice.

“How did you first meet?” Adam felt brave. He’d never before asked about a time before Ronan’s dad died, mostly because he didn’t want to get asked about a time before he’d left home in exchange. He supposed it was okay, though, because Ronan had come to the party and had stayed with him.

“At school,” Ronan’s chewing on his leather wristbands didn’t make his answer less lame.

“Yeah, but.” Adam, excitedly, forgot himself and leaned forward in his seat, like a child who’s been promised a goodnight story. “How. Like—Did he ask you for help in Latin, or did you ask him for an autograph for being the Aglionby Rowing Star.”

“What the fucking hell, Parrish, he asked _me_ for an autograph.”

Adam grinned.

“Uh? For your dashing attendance record?”

“Fuck you, Parrish, I went to class when I was fifteen,” Ronan said. He hadn’t sounded mad, or at least Adam didn’t think so, but Adam remembered what they were talking about and bit his lip.

“Sorry. Fuck. I shouldn’t even be asking,” he muttered, looking down at his intertwined fingers. Now he’d managed to make it weird. Ronan would leave in a second and he’d have to get back to St. Agnes on his own. He sighed, suddenly feeling very alone.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan barked. Adam had forgotten he was still there. He looked at him, trying and failing to tamper down the longing in his eyes. Thankfully, Ronan didn’t comment on it. “You can ask. It’s just—There’s not much to it, really. He just sat next to me one day at lunch, told me all about how he has the hots for Glendower, we got pizza later, one day I took him home. Everything was a lot easier, back then.”

Ronan was looking out the windshield, to the couple who was still at it, but he didn’t seem to be really seen them. Adam felt even worse for asking.

“I wish I’d met you back then,” he whispered, because apparently drunk-Adam was also a very stupid-Adam.

Ronan looked at him.

“Why?” he asked.

Adam shrugged, because how was he supposed to explain that he wanted to see Ronan happy while he also understood that fifteen-year-old Ronan was never coming back.

“Dunno. It’s just—It sounds _nice_ , life, then, in all your stories. I wish I could’ve been part of it, I guess, that’s all.”

“How many stories have Gansey told you?” Ronan asked. Surprised, Adam found something like jealousy in the way he said it.

“Not a lot,” he said, because it was the truth. “We don’t really talk about that.”

Ronan hummed and they let the conversation die. Adam found himself fighting with his eyes so that they would remain open.

“Want me to take you home?” Ronan asked.

“You’ve drank more than I have,” Adam said.

“I’m quite sober right now.” Adam looked at him, directly at Ronan’s blue eyes, which kept saying things he didn’t know how to understand. “I’ll drive slowly, pinky promise.”

Adam snorted.

“You don’t know how to do that,” he said, but he nodded and got out of his shitty car. “You’ll bring me tomorrow to get it, right?” he asked, only following Ronan to the BMW when he got a nod for an answer.

The soft roar of the engine made him fall asleep when they hadn’t even left the house’s driveway.

“Adam, we’re here.” Despite Ronan’s soft voice, Adam woke with a start. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but he felt more alert than he had in the whole week. With the light in his window absent from behind the curtain, the only things to break the darkness of the parking lot were the BMW’s headlights.

“Wanna come up?” he asked, not really wanting to dwell on why he’d felt like asking.

Ronan shrugged, but Adam could see his arms looked tense under his jacket. He’d probably already ruined the good mood he’d had back at the party, in one of the many mistakes he’d probably made since taking his drink.

Adam led the way and let them both in. When he switched the light on, the room looked exactly as he’d left it earlier, after taking a quick shower before going to fetch Blue. For some reason, there was a slow hum in the air that Adam was almost certain didn’t have to do with his come-and-go tinnitus or a cranky whim from Cabeswater.

Adam went directly to the only cupboard his kitchen had, which he was surprisingly not ashamed to open even when he knew beforehand there was only a can of soup and a half-finished packet of sliced bread inside.

“I’m starving. Want some?” he offered, realizing he was still a bit drunk because he didn’t really listen to the little voices in his head that always told him not to let his friends see how little he really got to eat or to waste his already meager rations by sharing with other people.

“Okay,” Ronan said, making Adam sincerely happy while he opened the can.

“Great! Just a minute,” he said, while Ronan perched himself on Adam’s bed. He hadn’t still got ridden of his boots, so Adam guessed he was not planning on staying long. He swallowed his disappointment and applied himself to the task of preparing dinner.

With great care, because his fingers felt still a bit wobbly, Adam made some space on his table by piling his textbooks on the floor to set two plates and spoons. He couldn’t hide a smile when he realized it was the first time he’d set the table for someone other than himself or his parents, and felt quite giddy when the microwave rang its bell.

“Dinner’s ready,” he announced, unnecessarily because Ronan was just _there_.

“You’re still drunk.”

“So? You’re drunk all the time.”

“If you weren’t drunk you wouldn’t consider me a role model, Parrish,” Ronan said, and then he said something else but Adam didn’t really hear because he was focusing on getting the little stool he had in the bathroom to use as a second chair.

“What?” he asked, when he got back to Ronan already guzzling his soup. “Hey, you’re supposed to wait for me!” he cried.

A bit more upset than was strictly necessary, because it was just canned soup and Adam didn’t even have matching chairs or a dining room or, you know, heating, Adam sat down, feeling really hurt that Ronan hadn’t waited on him to start eating. He’d worked hard to earn the money to buy that, mind you, and he’d gone and done something he _never_ did and _shared_ his dinner, only to find Ronan didn’t want to share.

The scalding liquid didn’t make him feel better—it sat strangely still on his stomach. Adam wondered if it was expired. That would make the night a round one, just about ready to be subjected to be told as a story—hey, d’you remember the first time you got drunk? You mean when Blue bet against me and then left me alone and I gave Ronan food poisoning? No, don’t know what you’re talking about.

Adam flinched at the thought, and then cursed under his breath because the sudden movement made Ronan look back at him.

Ronan, who had been looking for quite some time. Ronan, who believed Adam was someone he really was not.

“Look,” Adam began, when he’d finished his food, because he liked it when it was still hot and because even if it _was_ expired it was the only thing he had right then and he was still hungry. “You shouldn’t have bothered,” he said. And then he waited, because in his mind it was perfectly clear what he’d want to convey and he was quite sure he’d managed. Only when Ronan slightly raised an eyebrow—did he get those plucked?—did Adam revisit the sentence he’d just said in his head, and realized he’d completely missed the point. He scoffed. “Do you get your eyebrows plucked—like—professionally?” he asked, instead of asking what he wanted to ask, because in the end he got coward.

“Okay, that was fun. Bedtime now.” Ronan had the nerve to steal Adam’s only clean kitchen towel to wipe his mouth.

“Excuse me, that was rude,” Adam said, standing up. He didn’t clarify if he meant what Ronan had said or what he’d done, because they were _both_ rude. He took his dirty plate to the sink and was surprised when Ronan put his own on top of Adam’s.

“I’ll wash these,” Ronan said, way _too_ kindly. It made Adam scowl, because he remembered he was supposed to be having an _important_ conversation with Ronan. “Just get your ass in bed, Parrish.”

“You don’t need to wash my dishes. You didn’t need to come tonight, either, just because I made a stupid bet with Blue. She’s probably already forgotten all about it, to be honest. It wasn’t that important.”

Ronan’s hands were all wet and foamy and Adam wanted to tell him off for using too much dish soap, but then he used his _elbow_ to gently push Adam in the direction of his bed. Adam allowed himself to be pushed—he landed on the hard mattress and waited while the room righted itself again.

“Why did you say you’d drink fucking _beer_ , if you hate the thing?” Ronan was already drying his hands, in the same towel he’d used earlier. Adam needed to go to the laundromat soon, anyway—he was running out of clean pants to wear.

He could see half of Ronan’s leg through the rips in his black jeans. Ronan had probably paid a full week’s worth of Adam’s salary for jeans that already came with rips—Adam wanted _so badly_ to be able to do that and not feel an ounce of remorse at wearing them.

It took him maybe two full blinks to remember what they were talking about.

“I didn’t want it to be a _thing_ , y’know?”

“I don’t know jack shit what you’re on about.” Ronan sat back on Adam’s chair. He still hadn’t unlaced his boots, but if he was sitting down that meant he wasn’t planning on leaving soon, right?

“Like—I don’t want to have things I can’t eat or drink, just because of my dad.” Adam got a sudden need to laugh, so he did, though it was more like a chuckle. He kicked his own sneakers off. “He’d have _laughed_ at me if he’d seen me tonight. I must’ve looked so ridiculous, sniffling a beer bottle.”

He didn’t feel like laughing much, anymore. He breathed deeply. There was a loose thread on his blanket and he fought the impulse to pick at it. He hoped Ronan wouldn’t find it, because it probably wouldn’t occur to him to fight said impulse and he didn’t want a blanket with a hole.

He sighed.

Ronan hadn’t said anything, so Adam looked up. He got his breath stolen at the intensity of Ronan’s own look.

“What,” he muttered.

Ronan’s hands had been balled into fists—he released them, carefully, and hid them below his thighs.

“You—” When he spoke, it was on a low tone, very controlled and smooth. That meant Ronan was trying really hard to make it sound that way. Adam normally _liked it_ when Ronan tried hard, but for some reason he seemed to be _perspiring_ from the effort.

“Don’t pull a muscle, Lynch,” he said, with quite more bark than he’d intended. He bit his lip because he was starting to be aware of how much control he’d been letting slip since he’d started drinking.

“Just shut the fuck up!” Ronan snapped, standing up. Adam jumped a little on his bed—his mattress wasn’t very bouncy, so he didn’t go far. “You don’t want me to know these things, and you don’t want to _think_ about these things, so go already the fuck to sleep!”

Why was he yelling? Adam narrowed his eyes. Ronan started pacing the small space in the apartment—keeping up with his movement was making Adam dizzy.

“Just stop it!” he yelled back.

“Why do you even think like that?” Ronan asked. Adam didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Like what? You don’t like the way I think?” Adam asked, and had a revelation.

He got nervous when he caught Ronan looking at him, because he thought Ronan was wrong about Adam. He _knew_ he saw Adam like this kind of _good_ person who always knew the answer to stuff. But that wasn’t who Adam was, because Adam was a mess. And a lightweight one, it seemed. And, when he was too drunk to forget to hide all the ugly aspects of him, Ronan got mad and yelled. Well—that was not really it, because Ronan had stopped yelling and he didn’t look mad like in _mad._ It was a bit weird—more like he was desperate. But what would he be desperate about? Adam hadn’t figured that part yet. But that was not the revelation—in fact, the thing was that, when Ronan stopped looking at Adam like that, Adam didn’t like it either. He felt—what was the word— _sad_ , at the lack of attention.

That meant Adam was a selfish piece of shit.

That wasn’t new, exactly, but it was a bit unexpected, to realize it in full capacity when you were drunk at three in the morning. He was very glad he didn’t have a morning shift the following day.

Adam was about to apologize, but he stopped himself when he looked back at Ronan. He’d finally stopped pacing—he stood still in the middle of Adam’s apartment.

Adam, suddenly, hated that stillness. He wished the pacing would come back.

“I’m sorry,” Ronan said, almost in a whisper. Adam gasped, because Ronan _didn’t_ apologize. “It’s not your fault. None of it—None of it is your fucking fault.” Ronan made a round thing with his mouth that made the words come very clean through his teeth. Adam liked it—if his brain had been working properly he’d file the technique for later study. As it was, he just stared at Ronan’s mouth, probably gaping like a fish.

“What were we talking about again?” he asked, because he felt lost. He didn’t like feeling lost—it made him feel cold and he couldn’t afford buying a new blanket, even if his was going to eventually be filled with holes.

Ronan smiled, which was the weirdest thing that had happened to Adam the whole night. It wasn’t a smirk, or a grin, nor this smug thing his lips did sometimes.

Ronan smiled and Adam had to remind himself to keep breathing.

“You’ll have a the worst hangover tomorrow,” he said.

Adam felt very stupid, because he realized he’d missed the point of what was happening in at least five occasions since they’d entered the apartment.

“I’m drunk,” he said, because _that_ he knew to be true.

“No shit.”

Adam wanted to ask him to stay. The night, the weekend and probably longer, even if he himself didn’t understand how that worked very well. He wanted to ask, but he was too selfish and a coward and he’d lost his words halfway through the first cup Ronan had brought him at the party.

He stood up, crossing the distance between Ronan and him. He used Ronan’s jacket to recover his balance, which was always a bit skewed thanks to his dad’s parting gift, and sighed when he felt Ronan’s arms coming to meet him so that he wouldn’t fall.

Adam trusted Ronan, perhaps more than he trusted himself.

His hands were trembling when he took them to rest on Ronan’s nape. He stayed there for a second, mirroring Ronan’s stillness, to give him time to escape if he needed to. It almost hurt, not to lung at him, but Adam made himself wait.

“Parrish,” Ronan whispered. “What are you doing?”

With a shaky breath, because Ronan’s low voice was doing _things_ to him, Adam pressed his lips against Ronan’s. The were soft, and full, and one of Ronan’s hands had come to rest on Adam’s arm and Adam only wanted to press against him and never let go.

It ended too soon.

Ronan’s pupils were wide and his cheeks looked flushed, but his hand was firmly pushing Adam away.

For a brief moment, Adam didn't understand. He tried to go back to the kissing, because _that_ he understood, but Ronan’s arms around his prevented him from getting closer.

Only then did Adam realize what he’d done.

He jumped back, almost colliding with his mattress.

He’d let himself go too far. He’d thought himself so very clever, and believed what he’d wanted to believe, but he’d clearly had the situation all wrong.

Ronan didn’t like him like that, or if he did he didn’t want to act on it. He probably thought Adam was very pathetic to even try something like that—what did he think was going to happen? That Ronan Lynch would suddenly become a tender lover who would kiss all of Adam’s problems away? Life didn’t work like that, and Adam should really have known better.

The frantic pounding of his heart in his hearing ear almost prevented him from realizing Ronan was talking to him.

“I’d better go,” he said, righting his jacket. Adam swallowed and tasted something metallic.

“I’m sorry,” he tried, because there was not really much more he could say. He just hoped Ronan could forgive him, because he didn’t think he was strong enough to lose his friends on top of everything else.

“Go to sleep, okay?” Ronan’s kind tone made it all ten times worse, if that was possible, when he let the door slam after him.

Adam stood there, all alone in his shitty apartment, and couldn’t help but bring one shaky finger to his lips. How could he have fucked up so massively, thinking he was allowed to kiss Ronan Lynch?

Adam was no stranger to want, but by then he should have been used to not taking.

He let one tear fall from his tired eyes, because there was nobody there to see. He let a couple more, on his way to the bathroom when he realized how strongly he needed to pee. He left the door to the main room open, because Ronan had left.

He drank a mouthful of water directly from the sink, which needed a good scrubbing that Adam never found time to do, and stumbled towards his bed.

He didn’t think it was worth it to remove his jeans. He didn’t look at his watch before closing his eyes—he didn’t want to know how late it was.

Going to the party had been a mistake, that much was crystal clear. He needed to learn to curb his pride and stop himself from doing stupid stuff. He couldn’t be trusted around alcohol and would have to act accordingly. He couldn’t let himself think he knew what he was doing, because he clearly had read Ronan’s feelings wrong.

With a firm promise to himself that he’d try his best to stop creating messes where there wasn’t any, and a few more tears that helped a bit to calm the pounding of Cabeswater to his slipping conscience, Adam finally drifted off to sleep.

He awoke with a start, at the roaring hammering on his door.

“Coming” he yelled, with a very parched mouth, when he realized getting up was not going to be as easy as he’d presumed. He sat carefully on his bed when his head started spinning at a too-fast movement—each blink seemed to hurt like a piercing needle to his temples.

He hadn’t even remembered to switch the light off before falling asleep—he cursed himself when he thought about the electricity bill.

With certain effort and blaming his last night self for not having the forethought of removing his clothes for the stiffness of his legs, he finally opened the door.

He didn’t believe his eyes, who told him Ronan was there.

“Morning, sunshine,” Ronan smirked, and let himself in. Adam stood there, uselessly holding the door, because the door was actually helping hold him straight.

“Good morning,” he muttered, after a while, when Ronan had already distributed two cups of to-go coffee on Adam’s table.

Adam’s shock only doubled when Ronan produced two bananas from his jacket pocket. He stole a knife from the cup where Adam stored all his clean cutlery.

“Here,” Ronan said, handing Adam a half-peeled banana. Adam took it and sniffed at it before taking a bite, because the last he remembered was fucking up his friendship with Ronan and something was not adding up. The banana smelled like a banana, and Adam was kind of hungry despite his stomach being a bit unruly in the morning, so he just started eating.

Ronan sat on Adam’s chair and ate his own banana, while Adam very pointedly didn’t look at him but at the morning-lit parking lot outside his window.

He supposed he could just go on with his life, if Ronan wasn’t going to mention it. He could let it go and forget all about it and they could probably go back to how things had been if Adam could keep his eyes to himself and stop stalking Ronan’s mouth as he sipped his cup.

But the coffee was helping clear his mind and this banana was probably the only fruit he’d get to eat that week so he took a deep breath after finishing it and sat on the bathroom stool he himself had brought the previous night. He set the banana peel on the table, careful not to make any of the inside come into actual contact with the wood.

“Ronan, I’m sorry,” he began. “About last night,” he clarified. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ronan nod. Adam would have nodded, too, if he didn’t think his headache would get worse by the movement. “I shouldn’t have pushed my feelings on you like that—I should definitely have asked before kissing you and—”

It was what had happened with Blue, all over again. Adam clamped his mouth shut, because he really couldn’t afford to mess things up with Ronan they way he had with Blue. He didn’t really know how to do this or how to start getting situations right, but he needed to stop with this behavior. He only managed to make a fool of himself and he really was mortified by the realization that he was so horny he couldn’t even keep his hands away from his friends.

There was just something really wrong about him and—

“Adam?” Ronan’s voice interrupted his line of thought and made him look up from his wrangling hands. “That’s not—That’s not why I stopped you,” Ronan said.

“What do you mean?”

“You were drunk,” Ronan stated, as if they’d both missed that very evident fact. Which Adam hadn’t—he had a very strong headache to show for it.

“Well, yeah, I noticed,” he dryly said.

Ronan bit his lower lip, making Adam’s breath hitch a bit.

“You can’t consent to shit when you’re drunk,” Ronan said, slowly like he was citing someone else. It made Adam narrow his eyes, because there was _something_ in there that seemed fishy and probably required more thought, but even his insufferably curious mind could reckon it was not the right moment for that.

“Do you mean—?” Adam asked, when understanding downed on him, hating how hopeful he sounded. “Would you—Would you kiss me?” he whispered, lost in Ronan’s eyes when Ronan leaned closer.

Ronan’s very soft hand came to caress Adam’s cheek—the same cheek that had been rained with tears the previous night—, making Adam shiver.

Adam tilted his head, leaning on Ronan’s touch.

“Yes,” Ronan said, and kissed Adam.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it, please leave a comment or a kudo! Or come talk to me[ on tumblr ](https://hklnvgl.tumblr.com)


End file.
